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Wednesday, May 8, 2013

This past winter I
was sitting in an Intro to Psych class when my professor began discussing the
evolution of thought on psychological disorders. She mentioned that some years
ago, it was believed among psychologists that homosexuality was, indeed, a
disorder. Looking around the enormous 200-plus lecture hall, she asked us to
raise our hands if we thought the same thing. No one raised their hands. She
chided us, “Ooh, you guys are so
progressive.” We laughed, and went on with the discussion.

Our generation
really is progressive though—it seems that young people nowadays are more
accepting and open than they ever were. With that, though, comes enormous
backlash against people who might not feel the same—with Chris Broussard’s comments
on NBA center Jason Collins’ coming-out announcement, we definitely saw that.

The same day that
Jason Collins became the first active athlete in a major sport to come out as
gay, ESPN’s ‘Outside the Lines’ held a reactionary segment featuring NBA
analyst/Christian Chris Broussard. The anchor, explaining to Broussard that Collins
was a Christian as well, asked him for comment. Highlights of Broussard’s
response include that Collins is “walking in open rebellion to God and Jesus
Christ”, that “homosexuality . . . is a sin”, and finally saying, “I would not
characterize that person as a Christian.”

Yeeeeeeeeeesh. Could that have gone any
worse? Short of damning Jason Collins to hell, probably not. Yikes, Chris—that
was embarrassing.

I can tell you
that, sitting there at home and watching the playback of this interview, I was begging Broussard, for just this once in
the world of Christians and the media, to not botch it. He botched it badly,
and once again we have a situation where believers look like the narrow-minded
jerks sitting on the outside pointing fingers while the rest of the world
shakes their heads and wonders why we do not understand. It sucks. Ninety-nine
percent of Christians are not like that, but I feel like in this progressive
society, that one percent has all the attention. Now, these Collins-esque
situations feel like traps.

Broussard was
really wrong in his statement that, just because Collins was gay, his faith was
invalid. That was ignorant. The other stuff though? Well, according to the
Bible, he was right. Christians think homosexuality is a sin—that is true—to Christians
marriage is designed to reflex Jesus’ marriage to the church (his bride, as it
is explained). That is not to say, though, that Christians think that gays and
lesbians are terrible people. Rather, the Bible says that despite this sin, we
should love these people anyway—especially
so, in fact. No one goes past the sin part
though. I feel like we live in a world that likes to think that if you are a
sinner, Christians hate you. You go to hell now. End of story.

That is not the end
of the story though. As I said before, ninety-nine percent of Christians do
their best to feel compassionate and understanding toward homosexuals, because
they realize that, according to their own religion, they sin too in one way or
another. No one is faultless, so why should one group of people be condemned
just because their sin is different? To them, it is up to God to judge—it is not even their place to say who is right
and who is wrong. As a Christian, I promise you that I do not sit across from
my gay friends at lunch and just think about how sinful they are. It does not
even cross my mind, and that is partly because my faith tells me that the act
of judgment in itself is just as condemning. Judging them makes me a hypocrite.

Our progressive
society seems to be making some of the core beliefs of Christianity (marriage,
sexuality, drug use, etc.) more and more irrelevant. Twenty or thirty years
ago, homosexuality was seen as outlandish and strange—I mean, the gay community
used to take the blame for the AIDS virus, for crying out loud—but now things
are entirely different. Huge movements to stop negative connotations of even
just using the word ‘gay’ have seen a ton of support. Progress for equal rights
has never had more momentum than right now. Acceptance is rampant in the United
States at this very moment, and Christians, who look to follow the pristine
model and example of openness and acceptance himself in Jesus Christ, are
suddenly the kids playing by themselves on the playground. We are not allowed
to show our faith because that makes us narrow-minded and rigid, and we are not
allowed to be accepting because the only people in our group who have the
public eye, that “one-percent”, will insult us. Then, we are still in trouble,
because we are still a part of those
people who will not let anyone support the gays.

So what is the
modern Christian to do? It seems, ironically, like a two-way street with no way
out. This might be one of the hardest times for Americans to have faith. It
would be easy to say that all Christians have to do is to set positive
examples, or for the Chris Broussards to not blow it when they are put in the
limelight. Those answers are easy, but impractical. One can suppose, though,
that the real answer is in the issue itself. It is a hard time to have faith,
but . . . maybe you just have to have faith. It might be lame, but that is
about all the modern Christian can do. Who knows? It might be all they need to
do.

The story of Jason
Collins has inspired a lot of people in the past week, but the fallout might
have done the opposite for some. In the world of Christianity, some of the
responses might seem like more nails in the proverbial coffin—there you go,
another person ruining it for everyone. Not to fear though, because there is
still hope. Remember: Jason Collins, at the root of all of this, is a Christian
too. Imagine the trials he faced in his life. Imagine the times when he felt
like there was nothing but dead-ends in front of him. Imagine how similarly
that man must have felt to the modern Christian, all while being a modern Christian. He had faith—and wow, things
really worked out for him after all.

Modern Christians
seem to be looking at a two-way street with dead ends in each direction, but
there has to be a way out, and Jason Collins found it. He did not do it through
judgment or desperate self-defense or accusations; he did it by simple, quiet
trust. He knew his faith, he knew what Chris Broussard called his “rebellion”,
but he kept on.

Last week, Collins
was an exceptional example of courage for the gay community, and that is what
the record will show. Beyond that, though, he was an example of courage for
someone else—incredibly and improbably—he was an example for the faith
community too.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Iron Man 3 does a lot of things really
well—it knows exactly what it is supposed to be, and then proceeds to fall into
that niche in some places and completely buck it in others. In other words, it
does a nice job of taking some unexpected turns while delivering some of the
classic Iron Man standbys we have come to know from the franchise. That being
said, these tweaks can be a little hit-or-miss, and the result is a really good
flick that falls just short of being truly exceptional.

Tony Stark is back
this time around with a whole new set of problems, both internal and external.
For starters, he has the terrorist Mandarin (played by the stellar Ben
Kingsley) calling out the good old U.S. of A. in the midst of a bombing spree,
Pepper Potts not really feeling the whole living-with-a-superhero thing (by the
way, Gwyneth Paltrow looks insanely good in this movie—her abs especially . . .
but moving on), and a scientist named Aldrich Killian cooking up some evil of
his own. On top of all of that, Stark seems to have some sort of PTSD-like
symptoms from all the crazy stuff that happened in The Avengers. Yeesh.

It sounds like a lot, but the film actually
balances all of the conflicts really nicely (unlike, say, Spiderman 3, because somehow this article just would not seem
complete without some acknowledgement of the massive train
wreck/Tyler-Daswick-dream-killer that was, indeed, Spiderman 3). Everything is well-developed and believable, and the
central villain is the best out of the three movies thusfar. Iron Man is in
danger, and it shows.

The only qualm I
had with any of the conflicts came with Stark’s PTSD. It served the movie well
in terms of adding some complexity to Downey Jr.’s usual
cocky-playboy-millionaire shtick, and it was good acknowledgement of The Avengers, but I thought it was
somewhat random. There was no evidence of any mental trauma in The Avengers at all—they all just sat
around eating shawarma at the end—so to have this suddenly thrust upon Stark
seemed like more of a plot device than some genuine development in his
character.

At the end of the
day, however, this is a superhero movie, and you pay to see superhero-action.
In this respect, Iron Man 3 delivers
on all fronts. Without too many spoilers, just know this: Iron Patriot (formerly
War Machine) is finally given his due, the armor variations that you see in the
trailers definitely come into play in the best possible way, and the sequence
with the airplane might be the best scene of the film. It is spectacular—people
applauded in the theater.

Then comes the
final battle. Without too many spoilers, it both proceeded and concluded with
heavy, pivotal moments. The first one worked really well for me—some viewers
might see it coming and some might not, but either way it brings significant
impact. The closer, however, was quite the opposite. The ending of the final
fight—which, mind you, is thusfar the
final scene that we needed/expected in the first two movies—felt like a
rip-off. Things are incredible up to that point, and then I was a little
let-down. By no means is it a deal-breaker, it was just disappointing. One of
the best pure one-on-one action sequences I have seen in a superhero flick was
softened just a touch.

Regardless, what
you have here is the best Iron Man movie hands-down. It has the best action,
the best humor, wonderful balance, and the most interesting Tony Stark to date.
Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley also combine to be the most threatening opposition
our hero has faced yet. A few loopholes and a hiccup with the climax aside,
this is what an Iron Man movie should be.

In the midst of a
rise in realist-superhero flicks, Iron
Man 3 is the perfect example of incorporating mature themes while
maintaining an accessible, popcorn-style approach. Did it do enough to be
great? No, but it was definite quality, enough to warrant a well-deserved 8/10.